DUMMERSTON, Vt. -- The feeling at the Democratic National Convention in Denver this week is one of euphoria, and deservedly so. Democrats believe that 2008 will be a watershed year for the party and liberalism and an electoral repudiation of the Bush years on an epochal scale.

Three years ago, few would have thought it could happen.
Republicans were still riding high, and conservatives talked about a
permanent majority. Liberals were in despair.

Then, three years ago this week, Hurricane Katrina struck New
Orleans and the Bush Administration left a great American city to die.

In New Orleans, the nation saw the true nature of President
Bush's so-called compassionate conservatism. Americans were appalled
by the scenes of squalor and chaos that were on their television screens - scenes that weren't supposed to happen in the most powerful nation in the world. They were even more appalled by the inadequate response by the federal government to the disaster.

The Bush Administration compounded a natural disaster with
an unnatural disaster of incompetence, arrogance and greed. Three
years after the storm, New Orleans is the No. 1 city in percentage of
housing ruined or vacant. Of the 10,000 rental homes that were
promised to be repaired or occupied by August of this year, only 82
have been finished.

None of the 116,708 homeowners who were supposed to receive
financial help from the $10 billion federal Road Home Community
Development Block grant have seen any money. Public housing has been
razed and not replaced. Only 11 percent of the families who used to
live in the Lower Ninth Ward have returned. The city has only half
the people it did before Katrina, about 239,000.

More than 215,000 homes were destroyed by the storm. Nearly
72,000 still stand vacant, ruined and unoccupied. Homelessness has
doubled and the city beyond the French Quarter remains but a shadow
of what it once was. At the current snails pace of assistance from
the federal government, it's estimated it will take up to 25 years to
rebuild New Orleans, assuming another major hurricane doesn't come
along.

In those numbers, one can see why the Democrats are now
ascendent. Katrina has become shorthand for how Republicans care only
about power and care nothing for governing.

In a time when everything seems up for grabs and
globalization, terrorism and economic upheaval are buffeting
Americans, they want to see a return to an activist government that
plays a positive role in our lives.

Why has the nation's highway, bridge and rail infrastructure
declined to its worst point since the Great Depression?

Why are states having to sue the Environmental Protection
Agency to get it to enforce environmental laws?

Why was a housing bubble allowed to inflate while federal
regulators did nothing?

Why are veterans coming back from Iraq and Afghanistan in
need of mental health care, and unable to get it?

Why is K-12 education failing, despite the No Child Left Behind Act?

Why did a projected $5.6 trillion, 10-year surplus in 2001
become a $2.4 trillion deficit for fiscal year 2009?

Because our government has ceased to function on so many
different levels, and Republicans have planned it this way.

From running the military into the ground in a war of choice
in Iraq, to putting industry cronies in charge of regulatory
oversight, to undermining career civil servants with political
appointees in every federal agency from the EPA to the Justice
Department, the Bush Administration has shown total contempt for the
idea that government must serve the public good. Instead, these men
have looted the treasury and trashed the government almost
irreparably.

If you are wondering why liberalism now is looking good to
many Americans, the fruits of 7 1/2 years of the Bush
Administration's misrule are the reason why.

Randolph T. Holhut has been a journalist in New England for
nearly 30 years. He edited "The George Seldes Reader" (Barricade
Books). He can be reached at randyholhut@yahoo.com.